The art of carburization has experienced several technological challenges over the years. One challenge relates to the cycle time required to create carburized articles. Currently, one industry standard and common way to case-harden articles of manufacture is by using the furnace carburization process. Articles are batched into a carburized atmosphere furnace, heated to the correct temperature and for the correct time to establish a specified case depth hardness. Before carburizing, articles are strategically/selectively plated with copper to avoid carburization of surfaces of the article that should not be hardened. A typical carburization heat treat process may take approximately 3-5 hours. If one includes the additional time required for plating, stripping, masking, sand blast, and final stripping processes, the overall cycle time may take 5 to 15 days. Further, furnaces are automated for material handling and running the correct heat treat recipe. Once the furnaces are started, they must run continuously to avoid damaging the fire brick interior and affect the furnace longevity. As such, furnace carburization technologies are time intensive and require significant unproductive energy.
Another challenge relates to the deformation of articles caused by the carburization process. Article manufacturers typical encounter part distortion due to the adverse effects caused from the heat treatment of parts during the case hardening and through hardening processes. Historically, heat treat distortion in articles has caused major yield issues and affects every step of the manufacturing process after heat treat. Typically, non-clean up (NCU), outer dimension (OD) undersized and inner dimension (ID) oversized are common part defects found on articles due to the heat treat process.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the art for carburization techniques that allow for relatively fast carburization of articles, and do not deform the articles. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the disclosure will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the disclosure.